In a message dated 8/12/98 11:03:48 AM, love26@gorge.net wrote:
<<Have we been (are being?) blind (pun intneded) to this because it might
account for a large area of the biggest problem - the Web design
attitude that holds appearance to transcend in importance the "content"?>>
The answer to your query is yes.
Most professional graphic work has been done on Macs for well over the past
decade.
Many Service Bureaus and Graphic Arts houses have expanded their businesses to
include HTML Authoring, Design and Hosting - and all I see are MACS.
Windows NT's are used - but mainly as servers - we'll see what happens when
Rhapsody is released in the fall.
This affirms your remark - graphics artists are becoming HTML Authors - HTML
is easy.Yet many do not know WAI exsists - or bother with it. (I myself only
stumbled onto it earlier this year) Many of these authors have marketing/art
backgrounds rather than computer science backgrounds as is commonly believed,
and "aesthetics" are first and foremost. (ref: Tom's 25 year soapbox)
In my opinion, the original purpose of HTML as a universal language tool to
convey information "virtually" and not a "visual media" is lost on a vast
majority. The implemetation of HTML 4.0 and CSS is seen more as a means of
"Brute Force" design to use HTML (with approval through validation) to do what
it was *not* meant to do.
Personaly I feel many of the websites we are seeing today are attempting to
duplicate television!
But MACs are out there en mass and are the tool of the trade for Graphic
Artists and designers come HTML Authors.
Accessibility immediately throws out a red flag - not with concern about the
thousands that are not able to access a site, nor concern of non-compliance
with Disability Rights Laws- but in time and $$.
Yet the first and formost obstacle is education, getting the message out loud
and clear - not to the disabled and handicapped - but to the able bodied HTML
authors whom are not aware of this very important issue.
Kindest regards,
-L